| dc.description | The Ozidi Saga1 tells the story of a culture hero (Ozidi) of the Ijo of the Niger Delta in southern Nigeria. In the traditional context in which the career of the hero was recalled--an annual festival of seven days' duration, involving a variety of symbolic rituals as well as singing and dancing--the re-enactment took the form primarily of dramatization of key moments or episodes in the myth; the full story was never told in a coherent sequence from a canonical beginning to a canonical end. In this way there was ample room for the ritual officiant, dressed in white apparel and holding objects traditionally identified with the hero, to engage in song and dance sequences involving the participation of his acolytes and members of the attending crowd. The celebrated Nigerian poet-playwright John Pepper Clark[-Bekederemo], who first drew our attention to this exciting tradition (1963) and later published a text of the full story he had collected (1977/1991), has also recorded a 16mm film of a festival honoring the Ozidi tradition in Tarakiri Orua, recognized as its home of origin.2 | eng |
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